Presentation tools such as PowerPoint were initially created to simulate physical slides and have inherited a lot of their limitations. In this dissertation we identify the shortcomings and unmet user needs in presentation software by means of literature study, observations, a survey and the programmatic analysis of over 12000 PowerPoint documents. The results indicate that user needs are slowly evolving while existing software has hardly changed over the last 30 years. We motivate the need to rethink the concept of a presentation and we provide conceptual and technical foundations that can enable interoperable and well-integrated solutions for the identified shortcomings. The resulting MindXpres platform consists of a new conceptual framework, content model, information system and presentation engine. We present MindXpres as a presentation platform that enables researchers and developers to build innovative presentation solutions that cannot be implemented in the existing tools. We further demonstrate the flexibility of the MindXpres platform by discussing a wide range of proof-of-concept plug-in solutions for the identified shortcomings and unmet user needs.

Go beyond gamification’s badges and leaderboards with the new edition of the book, first published in 2011, that helped transform education. Going far beyond the first edition of The Multiplayer Classroom, forthrightly examining what worked and what didn’t over years of development, here are the tools to design any structured learning experience as a game to engage your students, raise their grades, and ensure their attendance. Suitable for use in the classroom or the boardroom, this book features a reader-friendly style that introduces game concepts and vocabulary in a logical way. Also included are case studies, both past and present, from others teaching in their own multiplayer classrooms around the world. You don't need any experience making games or even playing games to use this book. You don’t even need a computer. Yet, you will join many hundreds of educators who have learned how to create multiplayer games for any age on any subject. Lee Sheldon began his writing career in television as a writer-producer, eventually writing more than 200 shows ranging from Charlie’s Angels (writer) to Edge of Night (head writer) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (writer-producer). Having written and designed more than 40 commercial and applied video games, Lee spearheaded the first full writing for games concentration in North America at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the second writing concentration at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is now a professor of practice. Lee is a regular lecturer and consultant on game design and writing in the United States and abroad. His most recent commercial game, the award-winning The Lion’s Song, is currently on Steam.

Validity is the hallmark of quality for educational and psychological measurement. But what does quality mean in this context? And to what, exactly, does the concept of validity apply? These apparently innocuous questions parachute the unwary inquirer into a minefield of tricky ideas. This book guides you through this minefield, investigating how the concept of validity has evolved from the nineteenth century to the present day. Communicating complicated concepts straightforwardly, the authors answer questions like: What does ′validity′ mean? What does it mean to ′validate′? How many different kinds of validity are there? When does validation begin and end? Is reliability a part of validity, or distinct from it? This book will be of interest to anyone with a professional or academic interest in evaluating the quality of educational or psychological assessments, measurements and diagnoses.

The Workgroup Human–Computer Interaction & Usability Engineering (HCI&UE) of the Austrian Computer Society (OCG) serves as a platform for interdisciplinary - change, research and development. While human–computer interaction (HCI) tra- tionally brings together psychologists and computer scientists, usability engineering (UE) is a software engineering discipline and ensures the appropriate implementation of applications. Our 2008 topic was Human–Computer Interaction for Education and Work (HCI4EDU), culminating in the 4th annual Usability Symposium USAB 2008 held during November 20–21, 2008 in Graz, Austria (http://usab-symposium.tugraz.at). As with the field of Human–Computer Interaction in Medicine and Health Care (HCI4MED), which was our annual topic in 2007, technological performance also increases exponentially in the area of education and work. Learners, teachers and knowledge workers are ubiquitously confronted with new technologies, which are available at constantly lower costs. However, it is obvious that within our e-Society the knowledge acquired at schools and universities – while being an absolutely necessary basis for learning – may prove insufficient to last a whole life time. Working and learning can be viewed as parallel processes, with the result that li- long learning (LLL) must be considered as more than just a catch phrase within our society, it is an undisputed necessity. Today, we are facing a tremendous increase in educational technologies of all kinds and, although the influence of these new te- nologies is enormous, we must never forget that learning is both a basic cognitive and a social process – and cannot be replaced by technology.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2007. Coverage in the papers includes data warehousing and data mining, design methodologies and tools, information and database integration, information modeling concepts and ontologies, integrity constraints, logical foundations of conceptual modeling, patterns and conceptual meta-modeling, semi-structured data and XML, as well as Web information systems and XML.

This book includes a set of rigorously reviewed world-class manuscripts addressing and detailing state-of-the-art research projects in the areas of Engineering Education, Instructional Technology, Assessment, and E-learning. The book presents selected papers form the conference proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Education, Instructional Technology, Assessment, and E-learning (EIAE 2006). All aspects of the conference were managed on-line.